The following
article appeared on August 6, 2000 in the St. Petersburg Times
newspaper and was written by Peter D. Zimmerman. Mr. Zimmerman writes
frequently on arms control and national security issues.

A-bomb
attack on Japan was necessary

By late
July 1945, Japan was strategically defeated. The Imperial Navy would never
again sail to threaten U.S. ships; the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity
Sphere had shrunk to a small oval enclosing the Home Islands, Korea and
parts of China.

Japan's
ultimate defeat was certain. Never the less, it still retained significant
capability to wage war and to wreak havoc on the populations and prisoners
of war remaining under its control. Waiting for Japan to implode and risking
the death throes of the defeated enemy was not an option.

On the
50th University of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many historians
debated the necessity of the atomic bombings. Japan, they suggested, could
never have held out. If an invasion had been necessary, the Japanese would
not have been formidable adversaries, and in any event, if the allies
had merely offered to allow Emperor Hirohito to remain on his throne,
Japan would have surrendered.

I thought
differently then, and, five years later with then help of a newly released
CIA intelligence report I am even more thoroughly convinced.

It was
imperative to end the Pacific war as soon as possible. American POW' were
suffering appallingly; the civilian captives in Singapore and Hong Kong
were in desperate straits. It seemed at least probable that many of them
would be murdered within weeks as their captors sought to divert food
and troops from the camps to military uses. Finally, the end of the war
would mean an end to both American and Japanese casualties. The lessons
of Okinawa and Iwo Jima remained fresh.

In the
last five years, answers have emerged to the critical question surrounding
the decision to drop the A-bomb: "What did President Truman know about
the Japanese strength and when did he learn it?" President Truman knew
a great deal, and none of it pointed to a speedy end of the conflict without
the bomb or a battle for the Japanese homeland at awful cost. One hundred
thousand Japanese defenders on Okinawa cost 48,000 US casualties, half
the Japanese on Iwo Jima died.

A year
ago the CIAs Center for the Study of Intelligence released intelligence
reports gathered in the final months of the war, new information that
should decisively shut the debate.

A note
in Truman's own handwriting says that Gen. George C. Marshall's estimate
of US casualties was about a quarter-million killed, wounded and missing.
The actual estimate by the Joint War Plans Committee was 220,000 as of
early June-close enough. However, we now know that this figure was based
on a near-catastrophic underestimate of Japanese troop strength.

In May,
US Intelligence estimated that Kyushu was the base for 246,000 Japanese,
of whom 128,000 were in Army ground force units. Projecting forward to
Nov. 1, the scheduled date for Operation Olympic, military analysts estimated
that Japan could reinforce the island with 100,000 more soldiers for a
total of about 350,000 troops.

But
by June 16, Kyushu was already home to more Japanese divisions than had
been considered the maximum number possible in November. In mid-July,
US Intelligence turned up three more divisions on the island`, and by
the end of the month yet another appeared, bringing the total to 12, including
10 combat divisions.

A week
later, on August12, Japanese strength on Kyushu had soared to 579,000.
General Charles Willoughby, Mac Arthur's intelligence chief, said of Japanese
reinforcements, "the end is not in sight." Since the planned invasion
force numbered 770,000 including the crews of the naval vessels supporting
the landing, Willoughby suggested that the Americans and Japanese armies
might have equal strength-not he said, "A recipe for victory."

Two days
before Hiroshima, Japanese forces in Kyushu reached 600,000. Nine divisions
faced the invasion beaches in the south, three times the force projected
when Operation Olympic was planned. President Truman may not have known
the final figures when he released the atomic weapons to the Air Force,
but he and his closest advisors knew the magnitude of the forces arrayed
against us.

The
ability to move 360,000 troops to Kyushu between May and August demonstrated
that Japan retained both the will and the ability to continue the war
for months to come. Not only was the force in place but also so were the
logistics and supplies to sustain it in the field against and invading
army.

The cost
of an invasion to both sides would have been horrendous. Japanese troops
on Iwo Jima and Okinawa died rather than surrender; who can doubt that
the defense of Japan itself would have been equally ferocious?

We may
never know if a continuation of conventional bombing and the naval blockade
of Japanese ports would have brought capitulation without invasion. Perhaps
it would have, but many Japanese lives would have been lost in the bombing.
And the postwar world have been very different. The Soviet Army invaded
Korea on Aug. 7 and in a few weeks might conquered enough territory to
demand a place at the peace table. Even after Japan surrendered, Stalin
demanded partition of the country at the same 38th parallel that split
Korea; with his troops on the ground it would have been impossible to
say "no."

The destruction
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki served three purposes: it terminated the conflict
instantly, saving American lives, it insured a united Japan rather than
leaving half of the country to the same fate as North Korea; and perhaps
it provided an example which has deterred the use of nuclear arms for
55 years.

All writers
on this subject have biases, and all view the end of the war through spectacles
they have worn for many years. It is only fair to state my own: My father
was a US Naval officer in command of a Seabee unit slated for Operation
Olympic. He didn't have to go.

But
the objective evidence now available demonstrates simply that the sacrifice
of Hiroshima (from where Admiral Yamamoto on his flagship Nagato commanded
the attack on Pearl harbor), and of Nagasaki as well, was preferable to
the likely alternatives.

NOTE
BY Jim Meeks who sent me this article: I agree with all of the above except
where in the third paragraph from the end, Mr. Zimmerman states, " It
terminated the conflict instantly, ----". Records show that there were
conventional bombing missions after the Nagasaki bomb was dropped.

Atomic weapons have been used only twice. Fifty-five years ago August
6 the USA exploded the firs atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, killing
more than 130,000 people. Three days later on August 9, 1945, a
second American atomic strike hit Nagasaki. On august 14, Japan
surrendered ending WWII. For more than half a century, the debate
has continued over the use of atomic weapons to defeat the Japanese
without a more costly invasion.

What do you
know about the development of our atomic weapons. Take the quiz.

1. What physicist's
letter to President Roosevelt set in motion America's wartime program
to develop an A-bomb?

2. What was
the top-secret program's code name?

3. Who was its
director?

4. The untested
uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima nicknamed Little Boy, was released
by what aircraft?